'Valentine's Day' a perfect date movie

VALENTINE’S DAY

2 and a half stars

Rated PG-13

With its blatantly obvious date-specific title, this movie offers snippets of various forms of love and romance across three generations. Designed to resoundingly win the box office this holiday weekend, it is the movie equivalent of Chinese food. It will satisfy your appetite for entertainment, but will easily be forgotten a few hours later.

It fits somewhere in the middle of a scale between the superior “Love Actually” and the inferior “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Multiple intersecting vignettes unfold over the course of one particular Valentine’s Day in the City of Angels. The movie is directed by Garry Marshall (“The Princess Diaries,” “Pretty Woman” and “Runaway Bride”) from a screenplay by Katherine Fugate (“Army Wives”). The two-hour movie features a cavalcade of attractive stars shuffled on and off camera in perpetual rotation.

The fashion parade of beautiful women includes Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Emma and Julia Roberts, and Taylor Swift (in her acting debut). The handsome guys include Bradley Cooper, Eric “McSteamy” Dane, Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Lautner.

This corny, lightweight fluff piece is the equivalent of an extended television sitcom. It needs a laugh track since the jokes are few and far between. An emphasis is placed on the materialistic consumer aspect of spending greenbacks on flowers, jewelry, candy, cards and restaurants as ways to buy romantic affection rather than the deeper and more sincere emotion of love stemming from being struck by Cupid’s arrow.

The action revolves around Sienna Bouquet, a flower shop owned by Reed Bennett (Kutcher). His best friend, Julia (Garner), a grade school teacher, thinks she has found her perfect companion in a heart surgeon (Dempsey). Julia is invited to an I Hate Valentine’s Day party given by Kara (Biel), a publicist for a free agent quarterback (Dane), who reveals a secret about his private life at a press conference covered by a sports reporter (Foxx).

On a 14-hour airplane flight, Holden (Cooper) is intrigued by the identity of the person his Army captain seatmate (Julia Roberts) is going to meet during a short leave from active duty. Conservative Midwesterner Jason (Grace) is attracted to Liz (Hathaway), a fellow employee at the office. They have been dating for two weeks and things look promising. He is offended when he finds out that she moonlights as a phone sex operator.

A high school couple (Emma Roberts and Carter Jenkins) plan to lose their virginity over the lunch hour. A hilarious scene involving a guitar is reminiscent of “American Pie.”

Classmates (Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner) display their goofy brand of love on a track oval.

Fifth-grader Edison (an adorable Bryce Robinson) has a crush on someone in his class and spends his allowance money on a bouquet of roses. His custodial grandparents (Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo) have been married 51 years. They are planning to renew their vows when one of them reveals details of an affair in the past.

Things go full circle when career-minded Morley (Alba) rejects Reed’s marriage proposal and returns the engagement ring after saying yes at the movie’s opening.

Despite being contrived and predictable, this crowd-pleaser is a perfect date movie for the under-35 age group. The movie cuts across generations from a childhood crush to teenage angst and old age in showing the sweet and messy sides of either approaching or avoiding love. The actors are willing to go out on a limb and make fools of themselves in embarrassing situations.

Some of the storyline strands work better than others. The movie proceeds at a brisk pace with an admirable job of editing the various pieces into a coherent whole. The soundtrack of love songs is sweet as molasses and get tiresome. Country music superstar Swift performs a new song, “Today Was a Fairytale,” that is sure to top the pop charts.

Shot in Los Angeles, the movie is a travelogue of famous landmarks including the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, the Flower Mart, the park under the Hollywood sign, Bob’s Big Boy and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where (as in real life) old movies are shown at night.

The ironic choice of close-ups from MacLaine’s 1958 “Hot Spell” contrast the then and now of this aging actress growing old gracefully.

The movie is full of surprises, concluding with the requisite Hollywood happy ending. Be sure to stay for the very funny blooper outtakes that play over the end credits.

Supporting cast members include Queen Latifah, Kathy Bates and George Lopez.

Confident that this will be a huge success with the estrogen set, screenwriter Fugate has already signed on for the sequel “New Year’s Eve” that will hopefully bring back these characters and add new ones to the mix.

THAT EVENING SUN

3 stars

Rated PG-13

Hal Holbrook (“Into the Wild” and “All the President’s Men”) makes a lasting impression with an unforgettable performance in this Southern-flavored drama calibrated to be a crowd pleaser.

Holbrook, who celebrates his 85th birthday on Feb. 17, plays Abner Meecham, a stubborn and cantankerous old geezer. He packs a briefcase and flees his room at a retirement home, ending up at his farmstead in rural Tennessee where he finds a teenage girl (Australian Mia Wasikowska from “Defiance” and soon to be seen in the lead role of the upcoming “Alice in Wonderland”) sunbathing on his front lawn.

Abner’s son Paul (Walton Goggins from “The Shield”) has leased the property to former drunk Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon, who played Coach Burt Cotton in “The Blind Side”) for 90 days with an option to buy.

Abner takes up residence in the adjoining rustic sharecropper’s cabin surrounded by boxes of memorabilia from a lifetime together with his now deceased wife Ellen (Dixie Carter in a non-speaking role appearing in flashbacks).

A battle of wills takes place between Abner and Lonzo in a fight to reclaim the land in this leisurely paced film smartly written and directed by Georgia native Scott Teems based on a short story by William Gay.

There are long stretches without dialogue that allow you to enjoy the ambience and the natural surroundings. The sunrises and sunsets are beautifully captured by the first-class cinematography. Holbrook embodies a Southern version of the character Clint Eastwood played in “Gran Torino.”

Abner gives a perfect description of himself and the simple premise of the movie: “I’m an 80-year-old man with a bum hip and a weak heart. I can say whatever I want to. The only thing left that matters to me is my farm.”

The music by Michael Penn includes an old Jimmie Rodgers song about mortality that includes the lyrics “I hate to see that evening sun go down. It makes me feel I’m on my last go round.”

The movie takes place over the course of one week. It was filmed outside of Knoxville, Tenn., on the grounds of an old farm complete with a slave tenant’s cabin.

Barry Corbin (“Northern Exposure” and “One Tree Hill”) gives a strong supporting turn as Abner’s down home, good ole boy neighbor Thurl Chessor. He sells Abner his station wagon and gives him a barking dog to annoy Lonzo.

The movie’s main weakness is the dream sequence flashbacks, which are unnecessary and detract from the present-day narrative.

The movie sustains your interest through its nearly two-hour running time. It has won awards for best narrative feature at the South by Southwest, Newport, Memphis, Atlanta, Sarasota and Nashville film festivals. Greater Kansas City audiences are fortunate to finally have the chance to see a fine example of how good an independent film can be. It is opening exclusively for a limited engagement at the Tivoli in Westport.

Top 5 Flick Picks

1. That Evening Sun

2. Edge of Darkness

3. Crazy Heart

4. Valentine’s Day

5. Dear John

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